Pentecost Novena to the Holy Spirit

The Novena starts today ~ May 10th and ends on Pentecost Saturday, May 18th.

On Ascension Day begins the nine days of waiting and preparing, together with the Apostles and Mary, the coming of the Holy Spirit. These are the days when families should discuss the "Gifts of the Holy Ghost" and the "Fruits of the Holy Ghost" evening after evening.
We can either focus on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit:

Day 1   Gift of Knowledge
Day 2   Gift of Understanding
Day 3   Gift of Counsel
Day 4   Gift of Fortitude
Day 5   Gift of Piety
Day 6   Gift of the Fear of the Lord
Day 7   Gift of Wisdom
Day 8   Fruits of the Holy Spirit
Day 9   Meditate on Veni, Sancte Spiritus and Veni, Creator Spiritus.

Find additional information at Catholic Culture.

Or we can pray the following scripture:

Friday -  You Will Receive Power    Acts 1:8

Saturday -  Jesus' Promise of the Advocate    John 16:13

Sunday -  The Need to be Born of the Spirit    John 3:5

Monday -  The Spirit Gives Life To Dry Bones    Ezekiel 37:5

Tuesday -  Life Through His Spirit    Romans 8:11

Wednesday -  Understanding Comes Through the Spirit    1 Corinthians 2:12

Thursday -  One Spirit, Many Gifts    Corinthians 12:4-6

Friday -  The Fruit of the Spirit    Galatians 5:22-23

Saturday -  The Outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost    Acts 2:3-4

Novena Prayer

Come, Holy Spirit, fill our hearts with your love.

Set our lives aflame with your gifts.

Grant us wisdom to choose what is good and true;

understanding to embrace your plan of salvation;

right judgment to act according to your will;

courage to share our faith with others;

knowledge to live as disciples of Jesus Christ;

reverence to respond faithfully to your grace each day;

and wonder and awe in your presence.

Inspire us with enthusiasm for our Catholic faith.

Grant us boldness to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ,
and help us to bring the transforming power of the gospel to our world.
We make this prayer through Christ, our Lord.
Amen

OUR FATHER, HAIL MARY, GLORY BE
SIGN OF THE CROSS

Blessings,
Noreen

Pentecost Lapbook & Activities

I found this site called Christian Preschool Printables that has a section 

on Fruit of the Spirit Games they offer for free!

I printed a couple of these pages out and used them in a circle activity.  Students took turns and selected a card and read the situation out loud such as,

"while you are in line for snack time, a student comes and cuts in front on you.

How do you show patience?"

Each scenario asks the student to practice a Fruit of the Spirit (i.e. love, gentleness, self-control).

Even though I have first graders, they were able to brainstorm and share ideas
 on how to respond as God would ask them to.

We then worked on our Pentecost Lapbook.

I found the Pentecost picture over at Agape Worldwide.

On the inside, I included a Subway art picture of the Fruits of the Spirit that I found at La Dolce Vita.  

Kacie has created a lovely assortment of them in different colors.  

She offers them for free on her blog!  Thank you Kacie!

 I also made a book of the Symbols of the Holy Spirit which I made off of my computer.  

Nothing fancy but it gets the point across. 

Here's a close up of Kacie's work.

I also made the list of the Gifts of the Spirit and wrote the name on the outside

with an explanation of the gift when you lift the flap.

Under the picture of the Holy Spirit sending his gifts to the apostles,

I included this prayer.

Here's a better view of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

On the back side, I used Monica's beautiful drawing of the Holy Spirit 

she offers for free at Little Jesus and Me blog.  

She is an amazingly talented artist that offers her readers 

printable coloring pages for faith formation.

Thank you Monica!

I also found this Pope Francis trading card at That Resource Site that I gave to my students.

I give it to them in a shape of a book mark and instruct them to use it as such.

My last activity to celebrate Pentecost was an interactive discussion of how the 

symbols represented a Gift of the Holy Spirit.

I found it over at Lacy's Catholic Icing blog and realized it's geared towards 

older students but I thought my first graders would understand it well enough.

Thank you Lacy for the idea and the directions!

This was my last class for the school year.

I will miss my students!!

I sent them home with their Pentecost lapbooks, symbols of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit with the instructions, and the Pentecost cupcake.

I have shared this post over at Monica's Catholic Bloggers Network.

Blessings,

Noreen

Pentecost Dessert

UPDATE:  Check out Jen's Pentecost Flaming Cupcakes at Enter Under My Roof.

Jen's are so creative, festive and fun!

I saw this amazing idea for a Pentecost cupcake over at Catholic Cuisine 

and thought I would give it a go.

I read somewhere that it was tricky trying to get the sprinkles to stick to the mini marshmallows 

so I first checked with a friend for advice.

She said to dab a bit of sugar water onto the cut sticky part of the marshmallow to help it stick.

I also pinched the end of the marshmallow to help give it the shape of a flame.

It worked out well!

I brought them to my first graders so scaled down the amount of flames.

Didn't want to send them home on a major sugar high!

I also found another way to make the flames from melted hard candy.

They recommended butterscotch and cinnamon red hots.

Since it was for my class, I opted for a less strong flavor of Life Savers.

I only used the yellow, orange and red flavors and crushed them with my rolling pin.

Had to smack it a bit as if I was using a hammer.

I sprayed a non stick spray on my tin foil first then placed the crushed candy on top.

Placed it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 5-6 minutes until it was completely melted.

It looked like this when it was done.

I broke it up into smaller pieces and placed on my cupcake like this:

I brought a mixed platter of Pentecost flame cupcakes.

Due to the fact that I used so many different flavors in the melted candy, it had a yucky after taste.

I warned my students, but they didn't mind it at all.

It was a fun treat to teach about Pentecost!

I've shared this post at Monica's Catholic Bloggers Network and Lisa's Try a New Recipe Tuesday.

Blessings,

Noreen

Pentecost Lesson Part 1

I've jumped ahead again in the liturgical calendar for my class since 

I won't have them during the actual feast days.  

I have one more class this coming Sunday and then our classes are finished.
I'm going to miss my sweet class!

We didn't get the chance to fully learn about Pentecost so we'll celebrate

 our church's birthday next week too. 

This is what we've done so far.

After our book work, we viewed a very silly yet informative DVD called 

The Bedbug Bible Gang Pentecost Party!

I found it through my inter library loan network system. 

It's an animated story of the very first Pentecost which includes the 

Fruits of the Spirit, and the story of Philip and the Ethiopian. 

 It's geared towards young children from 3-8 years, so
 it. is. silly. 

 I have a class of 6 & 7 year olds and they loved it. 

 Giggles and giggles and giggles.  

They sang the silly tunes but it worked.  

They were able to recall all the main points.

My inspiration for our craft came from Dawn's at By Sun and Candlelight and 

Jessica's from Showers of Roses Pentecost Windsock.  
Thank you Dawn and Jessica!!

It took my students longer than I thought it would to create it.

It was a bit challenging for them in assembling it but it turned out very well 
since they helped each other.

Each flame listed a Fruit of the Spirit.

Jessica offers a free printable of it HERE.

Note:  I had made one hard copy and then shrunk it to 72% on my printer.

Thank you Jessica!!

I prepped the majority of the project and made the mistake of having 
too many color choices of ribbon :)

My students ended up with a rainbow assortment of colors which turned out really cute.

Yet took too much time to select.

I was concerned I didn't have enough red so I brought all I had from home including streamers.

I found these cute free bookmarks at Bible Story Printables.

They have many other cute ideas to teach the Fruits of the Spirit.

 I hope to make these cupcakes for our last class. 
I found then over at Catholic Cuisine.

And I will be spending time looking through Pinterest Pentecost 
for inspiration for next week's class.

Blessings,

Noreen

Mothering, a Humbling Moment

I heard this question today, what will you say when you first meet God and are asked,

What did you do to make absolutely certain your child knew Me?

God will not ask us, How many sports did your child play?  What grades did he/she get?  How good of a video gamer was he/she?  How many friends did they have?

He will want to know, did I do everything in my power to teach my child about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.


My first response, is a positive one and that's my ego talking.  Then, I start to think....really think... and I asked my son a question~ What is Pentecost?  Our most recent church celebration?

And his response is uncertain.

Sigh... I haven't done my job well and I'm viewing this as a nudge from the Holy Spirit to work on introducing my son to Him because I want him to know the third person of the Holy Trinity.  I want him to ask for the gifts of the Holy Spirit so he can grow up to be a man who's life is centered in Christ.

I'm linking up today at:  http://www.angelwingsandapronstrings.blogspot.com/with my friend Trish at L.A.C.E.

Please come and join us for Whatever is Lovely, Admirable, Cheerful and Encouraging!

May God Richly Bless You,
noreen

Happy Birthday to our Catholic Church

Last night at mass our priest said these words "Happy Birthday to our church" for this is the day when the apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."  John 14:26

"When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  "  Acts 2:1-4

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."  Galatians 5:22

Please join me today at RAnn's Sunday Snippets-A Catholic Carnival to meet other Catholic Bloggers to celebrate our faith!

God Bless,
Noreen